Help! I think I blew my engine, tranny, AND rear diff.....sad story...
 

Well, as I was driving home last night, my '94 Cobra started to shudder REALLY bad.... Thankfully, it started happening about 1/4 mile from my house... Anywho, I check it out visually, and man, it looks GRIMM....

1. The balancer behind the crankshaft pully is broken right off. You can actually spin it with your hand, there's oil spilled around it, along with metal shards...

2. There's differential fluid squirted on my passenger side muffler!

3. It starts up fine, but you can clearly hear metallic clanking noises from around where the bellhousing meets the engine are... Hard to tell exactly where it's coming from, didn't exactly want to keep the engine running...

Anyone have any idea what might have happened? Or how f**ked I am?

Thank you kindly in advance!

Re: Help! I think I blew my engine, tranny, AND rear diff.....sad story...
 

Well I am no expert but I would say that you are pretty damn phucked.

Your story sounds almost made up.

Well first off your balancer is what is causing your shudder. Don't run the engine again until you put a new balancer on. You need to pull off the old one and check to see if it has damaged the front cover at all. I had one break before and it took out the timing chain. If it looks real bad you might go ahead and take off the front timing cover and inspect timing chain, and drain the oil and look for metal. Once you have that problem taken care of, you might be able to restart engine, keeping a close watch of oil pressure and listen for any noises. As far as the gear oil on the muffler that is probably the pinion seal leaking. I'd start with the balancer first. If you are running it hard you may want to invest in a good balancer.

Believe me, I wish this story was made up, but unfortunately, it's not, and the proof is sitting in my garage.... :(

I will certainly look into replacing the balancer... Boggles my mind that it actually broke. I wasn't even driving it hard, just on the way home from the grocery store...

Is it possible, that as a result of the balancer breaking, that the shudder caused a "chain reaction" of sorts, that caused the driveshaft to move slightly and rupture the seal on the rear differential?

I mean, it looks pretty bad, oil squirted up front around the busted balancer, and there appears to be oil squirted where the bell housing meets the engine... It's as if the crankshaft bent, to some extent... But if that's the case, why would it still start up as if nothing had happened?

This is gonna be a "doozy"...

It is possible that you hurt the mains which would allow the rear seal to leak too. However the driveshaft is bolted to flange that is on the pinion gear. Its highly unlike the two are related but strange things have happened before